Day 6: Kyoto: Shrine Sunday
Yay! This hotel has decent cereal for its breakfast so got fuelled up for a full-on day of temples and shrines. First stop was 5 minute train-ride away called Inari for the Fushimi shrine and temple. Lots and lots of red torii gates like tunnels plus mini shrines everywhere that lead weaving up the mountain and hills. Lots of freaky spiders just above head height to scare us as we walked up. They had distinctive black spiky legs with green highlights and huge fat tear shaped bodies living in webs everywhere.
The fox was a common creature as a type of god. First shrine/temple had a live sermon by a priest. Behind his shrine displayed all the gifts (I presume) donated to the up and coming festival. Lots of fruits, beer, sake and rice – looked like a right p!ss-up.
Back to the hike, we continued through the maze of torii gates passing many Japanese locals and seemed to be the only gaijin. Just off the trail we stopped next to a large pond that had wild koi carp and turtles. One of turtles swam over, very slowly. Looked like a huge effort to swim just to see us as if expecting a free hand out of food. Out of respect for nature we left it out of breath, shaking its fist in disgust. Lots of moss grew over the stone shrines with people paying their respect chanting and clapping to their ancestors – must have been a Sunday thing. Even some very old people struggled to reach their family shrine using the rest points and vending machines along the way. Everything had to carried up by hand so we were amazed that anything was up there. It was a fine sunny day and the almost top gave us some great views of Kyoto. Picked up another Jap nutter, this time he didn’t speak English but tried following us saying ‘click, click’ pointing at my camera and indicating which way to go for the mountain.
Back to Kyoto for our second sight of Nijo Castle, a very grand place. Very old place with creaky ‘nightingale’ floor-boards designed to prevent ninjas sneaking in. Wasn’t allowed to take photos but the decoration was amazing.
Third place was the Golden Pavilion temple called Kinkakuji, a short bus ride away though with vague English signage to find it. The photos don’t really give away how crowded this place gets though the dedicated, huge bus/car park before gave an idea of the scale of visitors it gets. Beautiful temple in the middle of a lake but no access allowed to anyone. It was the start of what was to become the norm to queue for a photo opportunity then visit the gift shop which left a mixed feeling for tourism.
Fourth place was a Zen garden of Ryoanji temple – the first Zen garden ever in fact. This was quite disappointing as it needed a good rake. The neighbouring moss garden had more appeal to be honest.
Bus ride back to hotel took awhile as traffic was terrible. Quick refresh of shower and new clothes we headed back into town looking for Gion corner where they do traditional dance, theatre and puppetry. Couldn’t find it so had an Italian meal and got wrecked instead.
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The fox was a common creature as a type of god. First shrine/temple had a live sermon by a priest. Behind his shrine displayed all the gifts (I presume) donated to the up and coming festival. Lots of fruits, beer, sake and rice – looked like a right p!ss-up.
Back to the hike, we continued through the maze of torii gates passing many Japanese locals and seemed to be the only gaijin. Just off the trail we stopped next to a large pond that had wild koi carp and turtles. One of turtles swam over, very slowly. Looked like a huge effort to swim just to see us as if expecting a free hand out of food. Out of respect for nature we left it out of breath, shaking its fist in disgust. Lots of moss grew over the stone shrines with people paying their respect chanting and clapping to their ancestors – must have been a Sunday thing. Even some very old people struggled to reach their family shrine using the rest points and vending machines along the way. Everything had to carried up by hand so we were amazed that anything was up there. It was a fine sunny day and the almost top gave us some great views of Kyoto. Picked up another Jap nutter, this time he didn’t speak English but tried following us saying ‘click, click’ pointing at my camera and indicating which way to go for the mountain.
Back to Kyoto for our second sight of Nijo Castle, a very grand place. Very old place with creaky ‘nightingale’ floor-boards designed to prevent ninjas sneaking in. Wasn’t allowed to take photos but the decoration was amazing.
Third place was the Golden Pavilion temple called Kinkakuji, a short bus ride away though with vague English signage to find it. The photos don’t really give away how crowded this place gets though the dedicated, huge bus/car park before gave an idea of the scale of visitors it gets. Beautiful temple in the middle of a lake but no access allowed to anyone. It was the start of what was to become the norm to queue for a photo opportunity then visit the gift shop which left a mixed feeling for tourism.
Fourth place was a Zen garden of Ryoanji temple – the first Zen garden ever in fact. This was quite disappointing as it needed a good rake. The neighbouring moss garden had more appeal to be honest.
Bus ride back to hotel took awhile as traffic was terrible. Quick refresh of shower and new clothes we headed back into town looking for Gion corner where they do traditional dance, theatre and puppetry. Couldn’t find it so had an Italian meal and got wrecked instead.
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